1. Field of the Invention (Technical Field)
The invention relates to the field of digitization equipment for military platforms and more particularly to a method and apparatus for an embedded digitization system that reduces or eliminates the multiplicity of physical elements within the digitization equipment. The invention further relates to the field of network centric warfare based on a system of interoperable systems where systems are comprised of digitization equipment.
2. Background Art
Relevant activities in the field are being carried out by the United States Army and its contractors in an effort to “digitize the Army,” which is an effort to integrate digital message communications with existing and new Army platforms. Digital message communications occur within a theatre of operation over wire and wireless local area networks joined through wireless wide area networking, creating a “tactical Internet.” The concept of military platforms interacting through digital message communications within a tactical internet, which spans a theatre of operation, is referred to as the “digital battlefield.” The problems with the existing systems are functional problems whether mechanical, electrical, thermal, labor required, performance sought, etc. In addition, each platform usually has its own separate mission processors, time and position location/navigation processors, modem processors, and radio communications devices, making these elements redundant. The use of the prior art redundancy of elements increases the cost and weight of the system and decreases the reliability of the entire system.
The state of the art includes the integration of multiple pieces of equipment, referred to as “digitization equipment,” onto a military platform to provide the platform with the capabilities required to communicate digital messages on a tactical internet. A military platform with digitization equipment is referred to as a “digitized platform.” Each piece of digitization equipment on the digitized platform provides a unique portion of the required digital communications capabilities. However, each piece of digitization equipment typically includes similar physical elements like processing resources, memory resources, power supplies, communications devices, enclosures and physical interfaces. Thus, digitization equipment includes a multiplicity of similar physical elements. The disadvantage of the present system is that the cost and weight of digitization equipment is larger than necessary due to multiplicity of physical elements within the digitization equipment.
The present invention solves the problems of the prior art systems by embedding and integrating the capabilities required for digital message communications and mission processing into a system with singular instances of processing resources, memory resources, power supplies, communications devices, enclosures and physical interfaces.
The OH-58D Kiowa Warrior platform digitization equipment is an example of one of these prior art systems. Digitization equipment for this platform includes a multiplicity of similar physical elements within its mission processors, time and position location/navigation processor, modem processor, and radio communications devices.
A related technology is embodied in U.S. Pat. No. 5,883,586 Embedded Mission Avionics Data Link System. Whereas the referenced patent describes the embedding of digitization equipment into a platform with multiplicity of similar physical elements, the present invention describes embedding of digitization equipment into singular instances of physical elements.